


chalking sidewalks

by sdeer



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 12:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11357820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdeer/pseuds/sdeer
Summary: The lights in this city never go out, because there are always people awake, wilting young generations terrified of the dark.





	chalking sidewalks

**Author's Note:**

> prompt #79: The city is big and busy, but also silent. Everyone lives their own life, and baring/imposing themselves on a stranger is unthinkable. In this world, Jongin meets a strange person who boldly draws any available public surface with colorful chalk.

The lights in this city never go out, because there are always people awake, wilting young generations terrified of the dark.

Students with their books and laptops laid out from dusk to dawn, because they know if they do not work until they cannot keep their eyes open, they will become this city’s leftovers and rejects the day they leave school.

Young men and young women with dying dreams, lying awake in their rented apartments hours past midnight with the bedside lamp on, wondering when they will save enough money to travel the world, when they will meet the right person and fall in love - when they will start living their lives.

And in the morning, all of these people with shadows like bruises underneath their eyes will drag themselves to their feet and carry themselves out the door, making the world believe they own the future.

But in this city, there is a boy who outshines the sun and likes to sling a worn satchel across his chest, stuffed with cans of bright acrylic paint and a big brush that’s beginning to shed bristles, and a box of colourful chalk. He walks all over the city, drawing over broken sidewalks and cracked building walls, drawing people and places in a sketchbook with curled edges, and when he leaves, he leaves one small corner of the city just a little bit kinder than before.

There is also a boy who is just like everyone else. He dresses smartly and walks quickly, a coffee in one hand and an expensive bag over one shoulder, playing it by the book year after year. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in business, and he works as a financial analyst for one of the biggest insurance companies in his half of the world.

One day, they collide.

Jongin is picking up a quick breakfast before work when he notices Chanyeol, sitting in the seat next to the window, a sketchbook and some coloured pencils laid out in front of him. He catches his eye across the sunlit restaurant, and the boy in the seat holds up his sketchbook for him to see: it’s a brief sketch of him, standing in line.

Jongin frowns. He walks around a few people to get to that boy with the sketchbook, to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing.

“Do you mind?” the boy asks him first when Jongin comes close enough.

Jongin makes the mistake of looking into his eyes then, a pair of eyes filled with laughing light that makes everything else dimmer, because suddenly he’s not annoyed about the drawing anymore.

“What are you doing with that?” he asks instead.

“I’m going to post it, and maybe I’ll publish it sometime this year.” The boy with the bright eyes grins at him. “But if you don’t want this out, I’ll make sure it stays in my sketchbook and doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Thank you,” Jongin says. He glances down at his watch. “I have to get to work now, but your drawing is pretty good. Good luck.”

“Here, take my card,” the boy says, pulling one from his pencil bag and tucking into Jongin’s cardboard coffee holder. “Let me know if you change your mind, it would be sad to have keep a nice drawing to myself.”

Jongin flashes him a half-hearted smile and leaves the breakfast place, getting back into his car to drive to work.

He opens the door to his office after greeting co-workers the whole way up, and studies the card nestled between his coffee cup and its cardboard holder. There is no logo or business title, just a sweetly coloured drawing of a tall boy standing underneath a flowering tree on the left side, and the words “PARK CHANYEOL / cypark.com” on the right side in clean lettering. 

Chanyeol, he muses. A vivid name for an ardent smile.

Work can wait ten minutes, Jongin decides. He is very, very tempted to take a look at this website. That half-completed powerpoint presentation about incentive compensation management isn’t going anywhere.

The website is simple and tasteful, and this boy’s art is beautiful. Jongin finds himself looking over the prices of his artbooks, and hesitantly places an order on a more expensive one about cityscapes. The order confirmation promises a delivery time of 1 - 3 business days. Jongin looks at it for a while, then closes the tab and turns back to his assignments.

 

Jongin runs into Chanyeol unexpectedly a second time, just as he’s on his way to pick up the artbook he ordered.

Chanyeol is on his knees, drawing over a cracked sidewalk, his hands and clothes stained with colour. Jongin walks towards him and pats him on the shoulder.

“Hey,” Jongin says. “What are you doing here?”

Chanyeol turns around to look up at him, using his arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead, and there are those glowing eyes again.

“I’m drawing,” Chanyeol smiles. He shifts to the side so Jongin can see better, and gestures towards the bridge a few meters behind him, leading into a park. “People with no place to go sleep in there sometimes, and I thought this might make someone feel a little better.”

Jongin looks down and there’s a wishing well.

“So how come you’re here?” Chanyeol asks, tilting his head at the drawing of the wishing well and nodding in satisfaction. He starts to pack away his chalk and paints into his satchel, getting to his feet and brushing off his knees. “Are you here for a walk?”

“I’m actually on my way to pick up a delivery at the post office,” Jongin says. “Are you going home now?”

“Oh, I was about to head home, but would you like some company to the post office?”

“That would be nice,” Jongin says. They start to walk. “I’m actually picking up one of your artbooks.”

“Hey, you went to my website,” Chanyeol grins, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Which one did you order?”

“The one with the cityscapes.”

“That book took me almost five years,” Chanyeol says, sounding a little proud of himself. “It’s the longest an artbook has ever taken me.”

“Wow,” Jongin marvels. “You work really hard.”

“I had fun,” Chanyeol says. “It doesn’t really feel like work, until the part where publishers ask me to write captions and forewords for my drawings. That’s when I’m really tempted to move to Iceland and become an isolated sheep herder to avoid my responsibilities.”

Jongin laughs out loud.

He likes his company, because Chanyeol is so kind and bright, and Jongin has nothing to worry about when he’s with him. This is the feeling Chanyeol gives him.

Jongin spends the evening looking closely at the artbook. The pages are thick and heavy, steady in his hands, and the drawings are nothing short of breathtaking.

A window overlooking a glittering city at night, the stars blending with the lights; rain falling and flooding the streets, a little girl hopping along with a yellow umbrella; a village blanketed with snow, morning light trapped inside the snowflakes; the sun setting behind the skyline, bathing the whole city in a fiery glow. There’s a little bit of magic to everything, just like the artist himself.

Jongin has already turned the lights off when he sits up again, sliding his laptop over on his bed to open Chanyeol’s website, placing orders on all his other artbooks. Chanyeol seems to experience the world a little differently than Jongin has been taught to, and he wants to see this planet through his eyes.

He notices a new banner across the top of the website, announcing that five of Chanyeol’s works will be showcased at an art show held downtown this coming weekend. Jongin decides in a heartbeat that he will go.

He has not asked Chanyeol his name, nor has he asked his, but there is something warm and familiar about Chanyeol that makes him absolutely lovely.

Jongin receives several notices throughout his next day at work that their company’s annual business dinner party is fast approaching. There’s an email from the finance head’s administrative assistant, sent out to the financial analyst team, and interning university students popping their heads in to remind him that “Mr. Kim Jongin, my supervisor asked me to remind you that the annual business party is next Friday”, and coworkers starting to ask about the promotion list this year.

Most annual dinner parties take place year-end, but the directors at Jongin’s insurance company believe that the winter holidays are no time to be making internal business decisions, so their annual business dinners have always been around mid- to late-spring.

They usually entail a reflection of the year past, objectives for the year coming, thank-yous, congratulations, and a promotion list. It’s always something to be proud of when your name is on that list.

Jongin hasn’t gotten a raise in more than a year or a promotion in two, and he thinks, he would like his name to be on the promotion list this year. He needs something to show for his profession.

 

Jongin purchases a ticket to the art show at the entrance that Saturday afternoon, and he finds Chanyeol at the end of one exhibition hall, signing artbooks and art cards. There’s an impressive group gathered around his table, and Chanyeol smiles kindly at them all.

Jongin watches him for a while, and he’s so different from the boy on his knees drawing a wishing well over a crack on the sidewalk, and different still from the boy he met a week ago, sitting in one corner of the sunlit breakfast restaurant, drawing people as they came and went.

Chanyeol looks up briefly and catches his eye across the room. He smiles, looking a little surprised, and mouths the word “wait”. 

A staff takes Jongin away to tour him around the gallery as Chanyeol had apparently asked, leading him through the different rooms and introducing him to the artists, eventually showing him to the buffet table. Jongin ends up spending most of the hour he’s away from Chanyeol there, eating egg salad sandwiches and sipping from his cup of fizzy mango juice. He looks around the gallery from his spot by the buffet table, a little lost because he doesn’t understand art and he really just came here to see Chanyeol. 

Jongin is ready to finish his cup of juice and go look for Chanyeol again when he hears his voice behind him.

“I think you ate half the sandwich platter,” Chanyeol laughs. “Come on, I’ll show you my exhibition room, and then we can stay for the auction, or we can leave to grab a bite to eat.”

“Are you done signing?” Jongin asks, downing what’s left of his juice before hurrying to keep up with Chanyeol’s long legs and quick strides. “There were a lot of people at your table.”

“Some of them brought their own copies of my books and cards to sign, but most people bought them at my table. I already sold the fifty books and two hundred cards I brought with me, so I just decided to close my table for the day.”

“You’re really popular,” Jongin says, a little bit of admiration in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” Chanyeol grins. “Maybe they come to my table because I’m handsome.”

Jongin laughs.

“Here we are,” Chanyeol says, sweeping one arm out to the room, people filtering in and out. “I brought five paintings to this show, but I’m only auctioning two of them.”

“Which two?” Jongin asks curiously, following Chanyeol closer to one wall.

“This one of a whale in space, and this one of a boy falling through water.”

“Won’t you miss these?” Jongin asks, almost enchanted as he studies them. “They’re so nice.”

“I have drafts at home,” Chanyeol smiles. “I have photos of them too. And what would I do with a house full of my own paintings, right?”

“Oh,” Jongin says. He moves away from that wall to look at the other paintings. “How come you aren’t selling these?”

“I’m giving them away as gifts,” Chanyeol says. “A grandmother who lives on the first floor of my apartment building came to give me a basket of tangerines one day, and she saw me working on that one of the boy at the airport. I said she could have it as a gift, but she insisted on bringing me dinner that night in return.”

“What about this one? A little boy on the roof putting stars in a basket?”

“There’s a little kid with holes in his sweater who likes watching me draw whenever he runs into me. I was sitting outside at night once to take reference pictures of the sky, and he came and sat next to me, and I showed him the photo I had of my draft. He said he liked it a lot. Then he said he couldn’t afford it, but I told him it was okay as long as he would go get a haircut. That kid’s hair is getting too long.”

“This one of the doves…”

“That’s for a dove racer I know, he lives across the city. Hey, I’ll take you to see him someday when you have time.”

Chanyeol gives him another one of his bright smiles then, and Jongin is speechless again.

They stay for the auction, and it’s full of lively banter and light-hearted laughter. Chanyeol wraps up the three paintings he doesn’t auction to put away in the trunk of his car, and leaves the other two with the art show’s host team. He tucks two cheques worth two thousand each into his wallet at the end of the night, and takes photos with the winning bidders.

“Thank you,” one of them says, pushing up his glasses and crinkling his eyes in a kind smile. “My daughter has all of your artbooks, and she’s been wishing for one of your paintings since her high school graduation. She teaches art now.”

“Thank you,” says the other, a shy-looking girl with sweet eyes and short hair. “My boyfriend had a swim competition today, but he asked me to please get this painting for him. We had to put together a lot of money so it would be enough, but he’ll be so happy to have this.”

And to both of them, Chanyeol smiles brilliantly and says, “Thank you, too. This is in good hands.”

It’s evening time, just past seven, when men and women dressed in white shirts and dark blazers start filing into the venue.

“What’s happening?” Jongin asks quietly. “They’re not looking at the paintings.”

“This is my least favourite part,” Chanyeol whispers back. “They’re usually here after the auction to hire designers for their businesses. Let’s leave now.”

The businesspeople are familiar to Jongin, with their straight clothes and small talk, but he can’t help but feel like they are out of place here.

“Want to get a drink before dinner?” Chanyeol asks. “I know a nice bar near here, my treat.”

“Sure,” Jongin agrees. The springtime evening breeze is soothing. “Do you want to take your car?”

“It’s a twenty-minute walk,” Chanyeol says, squinting. “Are you okay with walking?”

“That’s fine,” Jongin says.

“Thanks for coming to see me,” Chanyeol says, tilting his head Jongin’s way with a handsome smile. “I know you’re not really into art.”

“You could tell?” Jongin laughs. “I had a nice time, though. I probably would have just stayed home otherwise, and even I don’t know what I’m into. It’s cool you’re so passionate about art.”

“Maybe passionate isn’t the right word,” Chanyeol says as they walk. “I just don’t really know what I’m doing except when I’m drawing. I still need help with my taxes. I’m a fake adult.”

Jongin notices he laughs a lot when he’s with Chanyeol.

“I’m a financial analyst,” Jongin says, almost abruptly. “I don’t need help doing my taxes, but I’m not…I don’t find my job very interesting. I work at a nice place with nice people, and I’m okay with doing what I do, but - you know.”

“I know,” Chanyeol says, his voice blurring faintly with the sound of passing cars. He laughs a little. “We need all kinds of people in this world. People who can’t do their own taxes, and people who go to art shows but end up standing at the buffet table eating all the sandwiches.”

When Jongin looks over at Chanyeol in the dimming evening light, Chanyeol is looking at him too, with a soft, understanding smile and his bright eyes crinkled at the corners. The city starts to light up as the sky darkens, and all those lights are falling into Chanyeol’s eyes, flickering and glowing, and Jongin’s thinking, oh, no.

 

Chanyeol orders fruit-based liqueur for them both, tangerine for himself and peach for Jongin.

“Their fruit liqueurs taste almost like carbonated juice,” Chanyeol says when the bartender passes them their drinks. “The peach ones are the lightest.”

“This is good,” Jongin compliments. His drink has a coral tinge that sparkles prettily underneath the dim lights. He lifts his glass slightly in Chanyeol’s direction. “Thanks.”

“Do you like it?” Chanyeol asks. He puts out one hand to stop the bartender from returning change, winking. “That’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

He turns back to Jongin. “They sell bottles here, let’s get you the peach liqueur to take back.”

They leave the bar half an hour later, Jongin with a tall paper bag swinging from one hand, an unopened bottle of peach liqueur that Chanyeol had bought for him nestled inside.

“Where are we eating?” Jongin asks when they step outside into the spring night air.

“There’s a pizza place up front, they recently started making potato based pizza that you eat with a spoon, I kept wanting to try it but I never had time. Would you like to check it out?”

“Pizza that you eat with a spoon? Potato based?”

“Yeah, they bake the cheese and toppings on mashed potatoes, so it’s soft enough that you can scoop it up with a spoon.”

“That sounds fun.”

So they go, and Chanyeol orders two small pizzas and two glasses of water for them.

The cheese is thick and still sizzling when the waiter brings their orders, and Jongin’s stomach starts to growl at the smell.

“Smells good, huh?” The waiter grins as he puts down the pizzas and water, then laying out a spoon, a fork, a knife, a plate, and napkins for both Chanyeol and Jongin. He slips a notepad out of his pocket and checks off their orders. “Let me know if you’d like anything else.”

“Like this,” Chanyeol shows Jongin how to eat the pizza. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the chatter of the restaurant. “And then you just eat it.”

Jongin copies him.

He looks up when he’s halfway through his pizza, and sees Chanyeol looking at him with something in his eyes he doesn’t quite recognize.

“Sorry,” Jongin says, a little embarrassed as he reaches for a napkin to wipe his mouth with. “Was I eating too fast?”

“No,” Chanyeol says, as if snapping out of a daze. He smiles. “No, I - sorry. The pizza is good, right?”

“Yeah,” Jongin says. “Thanks for taking me here.”

“It’s unfortunate they don’t deliver, though. Or maybe that’s a good thing, or all I would eat is their pizza, and I would get so fat really fast.”

Jongin laughs, and forgets Chanyeol’s brief out-of-it moment.

They’re walking back to the parking lot of the art show venue when Jongin remembers his coming business dinner.

“You know,” Jongin works up the courage to say. “There’s an annual business dinner party my company is hosting next Friday night, do you want to be my plus one? That is, if you have time?”

Chanyeol doesn’t reject politely because they don’t know each other well enough yet to be each other’s “plus one”, and he doesn’t ask why Jongin isn’t taking a girlfriend or a closer friend.

He only smiles warmly, enveloping Jongin in warmth, and says earnestly, “Of course. Will I be wearing a suit?”

Jongin drives back to his apartment that night happy. When he goes to put the bottle of peach liqueur away in the cabinet, something falls out of its paper bag. He wonders if Chanyeol took a receipt and left it inside, but when he picks up the folded slip of paper, it only has a phone number written on it, and following the number, “-CY”.

Jongin smiles. He doesn’t call him, but he saves the number in his phone, and tucks the slip of paper inside his wallet.

 

“Hey,” Jongin says when Chanyeol picks up. Part of him wants to jump up and ask, you knew I was going to call you, weren’t you? But he only asks, “Are you here yet, Chanyeol?”

“Um…”

“Are you lost?” Jongin is kind of nervous, although he’s not quite sure why. “Where are you? I’ll come get you, the event doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes.”

“Um…”

“What’s there around you? Do you see any street signs or restaurants?”

“There’s a row of restaurants across the street, but…”

“Hold on, I think I know where you are. You’re a diagonal intersection away from the event building, just stay put, I’m coming to get you.”

Jongin hurries out of the ballroom, down the stairs because the elevators are busy, and out the revolving doors into the night air. He looks across the intersection and sees Chanyeol there, decked out in a suit and tie.

His heartbeat picks up a little, but it can’t compare to when he crosses the road and reaches out to touch Chanyeol’s shoulder, and Chanyeol turns around with eyes illuminated by all the city lights around them.

Chanyeol’s faintly furrowed eyebrows come apart almost immediately when he sees Jongin, and he smiles lopsidedly at him, but Jongin can’t forget the moment his heart went crazy.

“Hey,” Chanyeol exclaims. “You found me.”

“Yeah,” Jongin says, a little dazed. He snaps out of it. “Come on, it’s that way.”

“What’s going to happen at the dinner?” Chanyeol asks.

“There’s a buffet table set up along two walls, and some tall tables to sit at, and about a hour and a half into the event there’s going to be speeches addressing things like promotions.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.”

“I usually stay for another half an hour after the speeches, and then I just go home.” Jongin pushes the heavy glass doors to the event building and waits with Chanyeol in front of the descending elevators. “But you can leave earlier if you want. Where did you park your car?”

“No, I’m staying until you leave. I came with you as your plus one, what kind of person would I be if I just left you?” Chanyeol grins as the elevator doors open. “My car is in the parking lot behind those restaurants.”

Jongin enters the elevator with Chanyeol and presses the ‘6’ button.

“Thank you,” he says.

And Chanyeol says, “Of course.”

The first hour goes well, even though Jongin doesn’t get much food in because his stomach is churning. He’s hoping and hoping to be on the promotion list this year.

Ten minutes before the speeches begin, Jongin is so nauseous that he has to excuse himself from Chanyeol and the coworkers he’d been conversing with to go to the restroom.

He tries to calm down, holding warm water to his face and doing his best to slow his stomach. He hears the door opening behind him, and he takes away his hands from his face to look up. From the mirror, he sees a concerned Chanyeol coming in. He smiles weakly at him, putting his hands down on the edge of the counter to prop himself up.

“Is everything okay?” Chanyeol asks, reaching for some paper towels. “Are you feeling sick?”

“No, I just - ” Jongin dries his face with the paper towels Chanyeol hands him. “I’m nervous I won’t be on the promotion list. I haven’t gotten a promotion in two years or even a raise since last year, and I’m starting to feel like I’m wasting my time here.”

Chanyeol is silent for a moment, and then he slips one of Jongin’s business cards out of his blazer pocket, and a fountain pen out of his own pocket. He crosses out the title “FINANCIAL ANALYST” and writes in the white space next to it, “PARK CHANYEOL’S FRIEND”.

He waves it at Jongin, smiling.

“I think you’re smart and responsible,” Chanyeol says, tucking his pen away. “I think you’re wonderful. And I think you’re only wasting your time if you think you are.”

Jongin stares at the card in Chanyeol’s hand until it begins to blur in his eyes, and he takes it back to put in his breast pocket. He feels his stomach settle.

“Thank you,” he says for the second time that night. “Thanks, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol smiles, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning forward to bump Jongin’s shoulder gently with his own.

“What do you say?”

Jongin glances up at himself in the mirror.

“Let’s go,” he says.

 

“…and we’d like to recognize a few of our company’s members for their consistent professional excellence by promoting them to titles more suited to their abilities.”

Chanyeol takes Jongin’s plate away from him and wipes the sweat off his hand.

“What are you stressing out about?” Chanyeol whispers, giving his plate back. “Don’t worry so much - “

“…Mr. Kim Jongin, one of our leading financial analysts, to the position of financial analyst team head.”

There’s applause, and Jongin feels not excitement, but relief. Chanyeol’s laughing, clapping him on the back. Jongin refuses going up to give a brief speech when he’s offered the opportunity, putting one hand up and shaking his head. He smiles at everyone looking his way and says thank you, though. He’s thanked once more for his efforts and wished luck in his new position.

A few people catch his eye and raise their glasses, and the night carries on.

He looks at Chanyeol, whose cheeks are flushed and can’t seem to stop smiling. He’s more excited than Jongin himself, and Jongin thinks it’s a little strange that this boy he met weeks ago is the only person genuinely happy for him right now.

But Chanyeol is not a stranger.

Chanyeol smiles at him and takes him out for drinks and pizza after he visits his art show, and agrees to be his plus one without asking why, and leaves his phone number with him on a slip of paper, and tells him he’s wonderful when he’s feeling nervous. Of course Chanyeol isn’t a stranger. They’re friends. He even has a business card that says so.

“See? Nothing to worry about.” Chanyeol clinks his plate softly against the edge of Jongin’s, bringing him back. And then, “I’m very proud of you, Jongin.”

Jongin feels his own heart swell.

 

“Want to go out for ice cream?” Chanyeol suggests, slinging his blazer over one arm and loosening his tie as they leave the event building. “There’s a really good place that’s open all night. It’s kind of far from here, though. We could drive back to your place, and then we can take my car there. I’ll drive you back home afterwards.”

Jongin would decline. He would say it’s getting late and it’s been a long week at work, maybe another time. He would suggest Chanyeol lead and he’ll drive behind him to save them both trouble. But he doesn’t so much ask where they’re going.

He says, “Sure.”

Driving back to his own apartment to drop off his car, he looks in the rearview mirror a few times and sees Chanyeol. He looks like he’s singing along to something, and Jongin feels calm. In that moment, it’s like he’ll never leave, and Jongin thinks he doesn’t need any more plans as long as Chanyeol is waiting for him.

And maybe it’s too early to be thinking like that, but Jongin can’t lie to himself.

 

“I’m going to go park the car!” Jongin shouts out the car window to Chanyeol as they approach the gate of his apartment community. “Do you want to wait out here?”

“What?” Chanyeol yells, rolling down his window and leaning out. “Sorry, my window was up!”

“I said I’m going to go park the car!” Jongin repeats, laughing. “Can you wait here? I’ll be five minutes!”

“Oh! Sure!” Chanyeol gets back in his seat properly and sticks a thumbs-up out the window. Jongin watches as he pulls over to the side, where he won’t block anybody trying to get in or out.

Jongin taps his key card against the slim digital lock on the gate and drives down to the underground parking spaces. He looks down at himself as he’s walking back up, and remembers he’s still in a suit. He pauses, considering how long it would take for him to go to his place and change into street clothes, but brushes it off when he thinks of Chanyeol waiting for him outside, in a suit and tie too.

So he picks up his pace.

He finds Chanyeol’s car parked right outside the gate. Jongin’s about to knock on the window when he sees that Chanyeol has his eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly and steadily, and Jongin doesn’t want to wake him up right away. He must be tired, Jongin realizes.

Jongin thought everybody looked younger asleep, but Chanyeol looks older, maybe because he’s not moving about or smiling or blinking those bright eyes, and Jongin sees the dark circles underneath his eyes for the first time. Chanyeol is leaned back against his driver’s seat, hands folded over the seatbelt crossing his stomach, head tilted away from the window, his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

So Jongin takes a few steps back and leans against the end of the gate. The night air is calm and slow and gentle as it breezes by his skin, and he closes his eyes too.

Jongin’s halfway to dozing off when he hears the car door open and close, and Chanyeol’s standing in front of him when his eyes fly open.

“Oh, hey,” Jongin says, a little embarrassed. “I came out and you were sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you up, so I just…you know.”

“Sorry,” Chanyeol says after a moment, scratching the back of his head. He cracks a little smile. “Let’s go.”

Chanyeol opens the door to the passenger seat for him, and Jongin gets in.

“Are you tired these days?” Jongin asks when Chanyeol starts up the car again. He feels something like guilt, but he doesn’t know why. “You fell asleep in five minutes.”

“Me?” Chanyeol backs out and slips onto the road. He glances at Jongin quickly. “Maybe a little stressed recently. But it’s okay.”

A pause.

“Are you sure?”

Chanyeol looks over at him again, something flickering in his eyes this time. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Jongin raises his voice almost undetectably, a tinge of frustration spouting just because Chanyeol won’t admit he’s tired, and somebody who’s not tired doesn’t fall asleep in the five minutes they’re waiting in the car. “You look tired. What’s wrong?”

“I - ” Chanyeol rubs his face with one hand, and Jongin sees a bit of his cheer fall apart. The rest of his words come out fast, and when they meet a red light, Chanyeol almost slams the brakes. “There’s this company that produces art textbooks for university students, and they wanted to buy one of my paintings for the cover, but I didn’t want to sell it to them, because it would become their property and I want my art to be mine. Then they proposed a five-year contract for me to work with them on a new edition of an old textbook, but I didn’t want to do that either, so I refused. Now they’re threatening to hire other artists to mimic my style, and I don’t even have legal grounds to sue them for copyright or anything…”

The red light blacks out and the green light pops back on. Chanyeol steps on the gas pedal so hard Jongin is thrown back against his seat.

“No,” Jongin says after a short silence, looking at Chanyeol’s profile against the night. He’s still not smiling. “I’m sure there’s something.”

He wants to say that there is no way Chanyeol’s art could be duplicated, because there is magic and a story guiding all of his pencil lines and brushstrokes, and his art comes from people and places and something that is familiar to everybody who lays eyes on his work. But he knows this is not what Chanyeol needs to hear right now.”

So when Chanyeol takes a deep breath that he tries to keep steady, and asks what could be done, Jongin says, “Do you have access to the contract they proposed?”

 

“- then file a lawsuit demanding forecasted pecuniary damages and suffered non-pecuniary damages, and slight exemplary damages on account of their intent of defamation,” Jongin grins, looking up into Chanyeol’s eyes. They’re starting to sparkle again. “And if the court finds them liable - which they should, because they are, you’ll get compensation and more attention to your work, and universities probably won’t be ordering their textbooks anymore.”

“Really?” Chanyeol takes their ice cream waffles from the girl over the counter and thanks her. He hands one to Jongin, then grabs spoons for them both. There’s excitement in his voice. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I work in corporate business,” Jongin tells him, starting on his ice cream. “This much I know.”

“Thanks,” Chanyeol says, his eyes crinkling. “Thanks, Jongin.”

Jongin laughs. “I know some lawyers who have a lot of experience working with tort cases that have to do with intellectual and creative property, I think I actually have a couple of their business cards in my wallet right now - “

“Hey,” Chanyeol reaches out and stops him, his palm just brushing the back of Jongin’s hand. “We don’t have to worry about that right away. I’ll make sure to take those business cards from you before I drop you off at your apartment, but let’s eat our ice cream now.”

And Jongin says okay.

They spend a long time together there that Friday night, and Jongin doesn’t quite remember when they finished off their ice cream waffles and decided to order frozen shakes, nor does he remember how exactly they stopped making talk and began telling stories of themselves, but he remembers when all the good feelings fell down at the end of the night, when Chanyeol dropped him off at the gate of his apartment community after taking four lawyers’ business cards from him.

“I’m going to be busy for the next few weeks,” Chanyeol had said. “But I’ll text you. I’ll call you.”

Jongin barely managed a smile and an “okay”.

Chanyeol called after him one more time. Jongin turned around, but all Chanyeol said was, “Congratulations on your promotion at work, you’re going to do great.”

Jongin’s lying on his couch now, thinking about the night.

“I don’t remember ever meeting my dad,” Chanyeol had said. “My mom kept a picture of him in our house when I was younger, but she found me looking at it once, and she got mad and took it away. My mom died when I was in first year university. The doctors said she saved her antidepressant prescriptions and overdosed on them all at once. My mom just looked like she was sleeping, though. She left me a letter that I haven’t opened yet, but I know she didn’t want to scare me. That’s why she got into bed and then took those pills.”

Jongin told him, “My parents left me here with my grandparents when I was in elementary school, and I get presents from them on my birthday, but that’s all. I really, really don’t know where they are.”

They didn’t say much to comfort each other, because they both know some scars will be there forever, but not all of them will always bleed. They have learned to live with their scars, and that not everyone is lucky, but that they can still make something of themselves.

So Chanyeol simply said, “We’re very brave.”

Jongin’s memories are a tangled mess inside his head now, and before he falls asleep, he’s thinking of Chanyeol’s smiling eyes and hoping he’ll be okay.

That weekend, Jongin catches a cold that turns into a fever, and he drinks water and gets rest and takes medicine like he’s supposed to, but Saturday and Sunday blur painfully and he still feels awful when Monday comes.

But he has to pull it together, because he’s the financial analyst team head now.

Chanyeol doesn’t text him. Chanyeol doesn’t call him.

It’s like he took his secrets and ran away.

 

The week goes by slowly.

On Monday, Jongin moves into a new office. A handful of student interns are sent to give him a hand, and he thanks them by treating them to lunch. Jongin feels dizzy every time he bends down to pick something up or put something down, and he’s a little weak in the arms, but admittedly, he doesn’t have to carry much. He gets acquainted with his new assistant, a shy, short-haired girl who’s surprisingly efficient. She seems vaguely familiar, but Jongin can’t quite recall from where.

Tuesday comes meetings and formalities. The former team head is retiring, and the financial analyst team gets together in the kitchen on their floor for a sip of wine and a slice of homemade cake. Jongin sits through three different meetings, two in the morning and one in the afternoon, because those meetings are his responsibility now. He tries his best to clear his head.

The work piles in on Wednesday, and for a brief moment, looking at the flood of clients’ and coworkers’ emails in his inbox, the folders piling on one side of his desk, and the crammed appointment book his assistant shows him, Jongin wants to cry. But Chanyeol said he was proud of him, and he was going to do great, so he grits his teeth and gets through the day as best he can.

Thursday is just as busy, but Jongin’s head isn’t as heavy and his feet aren’t as light. He asks his assistant, “By any chance, were you at an art show two weeks ago?” Her eyes light up. Her boyfriend won the swim competition, and he loved Chanyeol’s painting.

It’s Friday evening when Jongin begins to crack. 

He changes into home clothes and takes a nap on his couch when he gets home from work, and the sky is glowing so beautifully when he wakes up that he feels like he has no choice but go outside and greet it. He walks around aimlessly, and eventually finds himself looking down at a chalk and paint drawing of a wishing well outside a park. Someone’s poured water into the sidewalk crack, and there’s a few pennies and nickels inside.

Jongin puts a dime in there too. There’s not many people around, or rather not many people around who would look at him strangely if he clasped his hands together now and closed his eyes to make a wish.

“I kind of miss you,” he says softly. “You said you would text me. You said you would call me. I was sick the whole week and I never heard from you. I want you to take me places again, or just let me be with you. Did you know - when I met you, it just felt like picking up where I left off. You weren’t a stranger, not even from the beginning.”

“Jongin.”

Chanyeol stands against the setting sun, draped in veils of golden light and soft red shadows. He looks exhausted, but he’s standing tall.

“Did you win the case?” Jongin asks, his voice hoarse.

“I won.”

When Jongin runs towards him, Chanyeol opens his arms like he has been waiting, and embraces him. Jongin feels his heart settle back into his chest.

 

And some time later, when Chanyeol tells Jongin, “You made me want to come back. You were the first person who made me want to stay,” Jongin kisses his hand sleepily and says, “You showed me the whole world was inside you.”

Someone who has seen the world but has never thought to stay, and someone who has stayed in one place all their life because they are too terrified to explore. They are in love, and that is a precious thing.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a struggle qaq


End file.
